And Northeast Florida's jobless rate is 8.5 percent, higher than the nation's.

A tumultuous election year coupled with economic uncertainty overseas kept the First Coast’s economy stagnant in July, according to a University of North Florida economist.

The unemployment rate for Northeast Florida jumped from 8 percent in June to 8.5 percent in July, said UNF economist Paul Mason. In addition, key indicators in the consumer price index continued a reversal of positive signs that were seen in May with gasoline and food prices inflating by less than 1 percent. Those prices had been decreasing up until May.

Mason said the unemployment figure, which is now higher than the national rate of 8.3 percent in July, rose in part because college and high school students gave up on finding jobs this summer. The inflation rate was influenced by elections and the European financial crisis.

“As weak as our economy is, you’d expect to see some significant growth,” Mason said Monday. “There’s so much uncertainty about the [presidential] election, about the Obama health care bill, about what’s going on in Europe, firms are reluctant to hire.”

Mason added that since many companies were forced to produce commodities with limited numbers of personnel during the recession that they’ve figured out their minimum work force and are hesitant to hire anyone other than essential personnel.

While Mason’s figures show a flat economy for the First Coast, which includes Duval, Nassau, Clay, St. Johns and Baker counties, single-family home sales continue to buck the trend. July figures show there were 1,455 homes sold on the First Coast, up over the June figure of 1,256. And for the first time since the housing market collapse of 2008, the average home price exceeded $200,000. That figure jumped from $192,618 in June to $201,939 in July.

Mason said that’s an indicator that the long-term economic recovery is likely to continue, though the First Coast is still a long way from the 2007 average home price of about $260,000.

“The information is positive. It’s just that people are expecting a return to the boom era and it’s not there,” Mason said. “Remember, there’s a lot of pent-up demand because people haven’t been buying very many houses for about four years now.”

Despite the desperate attempts to portray JAX as some sort of economic powerhouse, our community is still driven and supplied by the U.S. Navy and the Department of Defense. Over 45,000 jobs (the largest group) are with the military in our community, and in 2012, the economic downturn has finally hit the budgets.

The Navy is trimming personnel at a fast rate. Their contractors, such as BAE Systems in JAX has had layoffs recently. This is a major part of the stagnation we're feeling this summer.

As construction and development industries were part of the bubble, and the military spending has been a part of the foundation of our local economy, it is easy to understand the "pinch" that we're in here in JAX.

Ultimately, remember... we don't produce energy here in Florida... there's no oil or coal to pull out of the ground. We're reliant on tourism, selling condos to snowbirds, and in JAX, we're reliant on the military payroll.

Back in the way-back, our region was valuable for naval stores (pine and oak wood, turpentine and pine tar). Central Florida had cattle, fish and later oranges to sell.

JAX doesn't have much to sell now does it? We used to run toll roads to skim a little off of the transport of goods... now we sit here and wait like turtles on a log.

"You dress good, you look good. You look good, you feel good. You feel good, you play good. You play good, they pay good!". - Deion Sanders

1370 points

fsu813

Tuesday, August 21, 2012 @ 8:47 am

As was prediected years ago, this will be an up & down recovery for years to come. No quick fixes, no silver bullet. A few months up, a few months down, and so it goes, while the job market slowly improves.